1971 Pontiac Ventura - Everyman's Hot Rod

We don't want to give Jerod Kirk a big head, or give his buddies too many reasons to chide him. But when we met him and learned about how he built his '71 Pontiac Ventura, there was only one way to describe him: the everyman. Not Everyman, the 15th-century English play about Christian salvation, but about all of us in this sport. His is the classic tale of how younger people get started tinkering with engines, transmissions, and suspension systems, then pursuing better cars. And his story could be yours, ours, or belong to thousands of burgeoning hot rodders.

2/25

See if this sounds like you in high school. You need a car. You want one that you can work on. It has to be a two-door, have a V-8, and be rear-wheel drive. Oh yeah, it's got to be cheap, too. Everything else is negotiable. Being one color is nice, but not required. Functional air conditioning is completely overrated. Items such as turn signals and windshield wipers are luxury elements. Heck, we've bought cars like this because they were cheaper and quicker than rebuilding the engine in the daily driver.

3/25

Jerod was shopping for a car that met the above criteria when he came across this '71 Ventura. The owner really wanted to sell it to someone who was going to build the car, not destroy it. That's a pretty interesting selling point considering it seemed he was well on his way to destroying the car himself. It had the imprint of a light pole on one quarter-panel and was actually painted with a brush! The Ventura drove and met the basic requirements that Jerod was looking for, so he shelled out $1,100 and piloted the Pontiac home. As we heard the full story behind Jerod's car, we enjoyed the irony that ventura is Spanish for "good fortune." Which, of course, is better than the Spanish translation for the Chevy version of this body style-"no go."

4/25

Throughout the car's life with Jerod, most of the modifications were driven by the following guiding rules: They had to be inexpensive, parts had to be available, and they had to make the car go faster. If you're looking for a show winner, you should keep looking. If you want to be inspired by what's possible on a budget by being determined and doing most everything yourself to build a street/strip car, keep reading.

5/25

Over the next 10 years, the car would be used for daily transportation to school and work, cruising, drag racing, and an occasional road trip. During that time, the car evolved, being built in various stages. Jerod did a couple different engine swaps, blew through multiple transmissions, and swapped in and out interior components. There were a lot of late nights working on it until 5 a.m. just to get it running so he could drive it to school that day. Oh, that brings back fond memories of a misspent youth! There were also plenty of trials along the way. For example, he ripped the factory spring perches off the original axle during a 1-2 shift on his way to work one morning.

6/25

When Jerod purchased the car, it had power steering and air conditioning, as well as a few other options. These went away when he put headers on the car, as the brackets added complexity. The side benefit is that the car got a bit lighter and he reduced the power losses of running these accessories off the engine. He was also battling some overheating problems in the Arizona desert that he calls home, so he ditched the inner fenderwells to free up airflow through the engine compartment. He also removed the windshield wipers and related hardware-additional weight-savings bonuses.

7/25

The car had a nitrous 355 in it before the current engine. When he started building the 383, he knew that it would be a turbo motor, so he stuffed it with a good crank and rods, 8.5:1 pistons, and a mild camshaft. He had a set of high-end cylinder heads with titanium valves, but opted to go with the Vortec heads with stainless steel valves. He thought the stainless steel valves would better tolerate the heat that the turbo could build, and they would be a lot less expensive to replace if they do get overworked.

8/25

In its first iteration, the engine was fitted with a cheap turbo. Jerod chased tuning and reliability gremlins with it for some time. Things got easier (read: fast) when he decided to put a Master Power turbo on the car. He fabricated all of the plumbing for the turbo himself, starting with a set of Hooker 1 5/8-inch headers. In fact, he says that there's basically nothing left of the original driver-side header at this point. The rest of the exhaust consists of a single 3-inch pipe routed under the driver side of the car to a Dynomax Bullet muffler.

9/25

We asked Jerod if he would build a turbo car again, and he said, "Definitely!" He says it's the most efficient way to make power, but he also said that he'd take what he learned on this car and build the next turbo setup completely different.

The body on the car is another tale altogether. Jerod is a paint and body guy by profession now, however, most of the time that he has owned the Ventura, it wore a coat of primer, or a multicolored coat of primer. He says that one of the most satisfying things he has done to the car is the current paintjob. It was originally an Arizona car, so Jerod didn't have to deal with massive rust issues. It was smashed pretty badly, though, needing considerable metalwork on one quarter-panel and a bunch of detail work over the rest of the body. To further increase airflow in the engine bay, he crafted a 3-inch tall hoodscoop from sheetmetal and grafted it to the original steel hood. That's right, don't bother searching the Internet for that cowl hood-it's a custom one-off. The front of it lines up with the Pontiac "V" on nose, and the rear incorporates multiple holes, one of which holds the fuel-pressure gauge. To give the Ventura a custom and clean look, Jerod shaved the side marker lights, front and rear. He also blacked out emblems, headlight trim, the grille, and driprail moldings.

10/25

One of the most comical parts of the car, at least to us, is the instrument panel-only two gauges actually match each other. It's a potpourri of monitors that, like the rest of the car, came together based on what was inexpensive and available. When Jerod plopped the latest engine in the car, he really wanted accurate gauges to keep tabs of the oil pressure and water temperature, so those were added.

11/25

Not everything is old school and inexpensive. Obviously, a turbo on a small-block takes a lot of work to get right, and many believe that this is the way to make big power with a streetable engine. Jerod also used drop spindles in the front along with cut factory coils to drop the nose of the car. The rear altitude was reduced by re-arching the factory leaf springs, a time-honored and budget-friendly method.

He had some trouble hooking the car up when he started making more power. He studied the various traction devices available and fabricated a pair of bars with rod ends and brackets to mount them under the rear springs. Along with drag race shocks, this home-brewed system helps the car hook sufficiently to turn 11-second quarter-miles.

12/25

Jerod says his Ventura was never really built with a goal or an image in mind of what the car would be like when it's finished. The main thing for him is that it was his high school project that's been with him through the years. From the mismatched front and rear tires to the marine battery box in the trunk, we can relate.